Thursday, September 22, 2005

Country Girl

When we first moved to Oklahoma, we bought a section of land and moved a manufactured home onto it. For those of you who do not know what a section is, it is one mile by one mile of land. Although we had a couple of neighbors, they were pretty far away. The surrounding sections were just ranchland without people living on them either. In other words, we could walk out across our property and not see a soul for miles - pretty isolated. We would often go for walks (more like a hike) across the property usually on the roads and trails that made up our land. Once Jesse figured out how isolated our property was, she would sometimes get hot and take her shirt off in order to get some sun. She was never too worried about modesty out in the middle of the section, and she did have on her bra, which was more cover than some swim suits. It’s a farmgirl thing. My mom told me how she and her aunt use to take off their shirts while hoeing cotton knowing that no one was anywhere near by - which may be where Jesse got the idea.

Then we sold that place and moved to a smaller ranch – 280 acres. The nearest neighbor was about one mile away. This ranch was also pretty isolated, but it had a couple of section roads that were more traveled as its borders. We moved there in June, which is wild plum season. ONe day soon after moving in,Jesse went out for a walk across the property to get exercise, but also to do some exploring of the new place. She found some wild plum trees and started picking. It was hot; so like before, she pulled off her shirt while she worked. The next day she went back out to the plum trees to pick some more plums (she had her shirt on this time) when a truck drove down the north section road. As the truck went by, Jesse realized the road was just right there by the plum trees. She was quite horrified to think that our neighbor (an elder in our church) and his cowboys could have driven by while she was picking plums shirtless! Of course, they had not driven by, because she would have realized where the road was sooner, but it made her a lot more careful, and she did not remove her shirt any more while out on the property.

Now we live in the middle of a hay field. We do have some closer neighbors than before. There will be no going without a shirt, but we are still pretty far away from folks. We have not done the trim work in the house yet – we still need to hang some closet doors and such. We do not have mini-blinds or curtains up yet, because the trim is not done. It has not been a problem – we live pretty far away from things. The other night Jesse went into her room and shut the door (a luxury because she has one now). Then she came out in a t-shirt and sweat pants. Toby said, "You might want to change clothes in the bathroom since there is a guy cutting hay in the field next door." The look on Jesse’s face was priceless. She just said, "Too late! So that was what all that honking was." Before you get all horrified, there was no honking; Jesse was just pulling our legs. She knew the tractor was out there all time.